1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to cleaning inserts for cleaning tape media, tape media cartridges adapted to use cleaning inserts, and associated methods and systems for cleaning tape media.
2. Description of the Related Art
Tape media cartridges have proven to be an efficient and effective medium for data storage in computer systems. For example, magnetic tape cartridges generally include a housing containing a tape coated with a magnetic medium that can be used to record large amounts of data. The tape is generally wound around a reel, and may be fed from the cartridge to a data reading or writing device through a hinged door in the surface of the cartridge. These data stored on these cartridges may be read and/or written by using a data transducer (e.g., a read and/or write head) of a tape drive.
The accuracy of data transfer may be adversely affected by debris or contamination on the tape or on the data transducer head. The build up of debris may decrease the performance of the tape, or damage the tape, the tape cartridge, and/or the tape drive. Various devices and methods for cleaning transducer heads and magnetic tape have been described. For example, a cartridge housing a dedicated cleaning tape, commonly referred to as a “cleaning cartridge,” may be used to clean a tape transducer head. A cleaning cartridge may include a tape that is manufactured with particular mechanical and/or chemical properties that provide for increased abrasiveness to clean debris from the transducer head of the drive. However, this method is limited, because it cleans only the transducer head, and does not remove debris from a magnetic tape.
Increased data storage capacity and retrieval performance is a goal of nearly all commercially viable data storage devices and media. In the case of tape media, this has increasingly led to smaller track widths and a decreasing physical separation between the transducer head and the data tape, which exacerbates the effects of debris and contamination on the data tape. Furthermore, even virgin data tape is likely to contain various amounts of debris and contamination such as dust or particles of the materials used to make the tape media, (e.g., the magnetic coating material).
Most data tape drives clean only the transducer head of the drive, using cleaning tape or brush mounted in the tape drive. However, these cleaning tapes and brushes do not remove debris already on the data tape within a cartridge. Moreover, removing debris from the transducer head in this fashion may only be a temporary solution, because debris may be merely displaced from the transducer head to other parts of the tape drive, where it may later contaminate the data tape and/or the transducer head. Debris may also block the sensing holes on a data tape leader, and thereby decrease performance of the data cartridge. Lose debris may accumulate inside these holes, or on other regions of the cartridge or the data tape itself. Thus, it may be desirable to remove debris from inside of a data cartridge, and from a data tape, before the tape comes into contact with the drive tape path components such as the transducer head.